Megan and Her Shrink Ray Gun

Chapter 5: Monday, June 16th, 2008

Chapter 5: Monday, June 16th, 2008

Monday morning dawned, and Scrapper sat at a table in the motel room where he and his two brothers were staying. He looked though a genealogy file on a portable computer that was linked to the Warhawk. He saw something that concerned him.

“Slackjaw, Gator, come here!”

The other two space pirates walked over to where Scrapper was.

“According to this genealogy file, Megan Weiss is our direct ancestor. If we kill her while taking the weapon prototype, we would cancel ourselves out!”

“Maybe you could use that to your advantage to get her on your side,” said Slackjaw. “If she knows you’re her descendant, she might cooperate with you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Scrapper replied. “It’s always good to have an extra ace up my sleeve. There's something else I found out, something I might be able to use to my advantage."

"What?" Slackjaw and Gator asked in unison.

"Megan's grandparents met at a concert in 1969, and her parents met at a concert in 1987."

"How can you use that to your advantage?" Slackjaw asked.

"According to our files, there will be a concert of local bands at the local grange hall this Friday night. I can convince Megan that she will meet her future husband there! Then, the two of you can take the shrink ray from her while I'm out on a date with her mother! I can bring up a map of this local area, so you guys will know where to go."

"Did she really meet her future husband there?" Slackjaw asked.

"No!" said Scrapper. "Of course not! But I can lead her to think she will!"

Nearly an hour later, Scrapper pulled up to the local junior high school on his Harley Davidson. He went in, and introduced himself to the staff.

"It's my understanding that you need a new English teacher?" Scrapper asked. "From what I've heard, Richard Sorenson suffered some kind of a stroke."

"Is that true?" the woman behind the desk asked. "If he doesn't come in today, we'll be short staffed. So you're a teacher?"

"Yes, I have a master's degree in English composition from Berkeley." Scrapper replied, handing her the relevant paperwork.

After calling Richard Sorenson's home, she verified that he had suffered a medical emergency, and accepted Scrapper as a new recruit.

Meanwhile, at the Weiss residence, Mrs. Weiss was getting ready for work. While still in her bathrobe, a co-worker showed up at her home and rang the doorbell.

"Stanley?” Mrs. Weiss asked. "What brings you here?"

"Margaret, I just wanted to know if you wanted to go out on a date this Friday night," said Stanley.

"Sorry, you're just not my type," Mrs. Weiss answered.

"What's your type?" Stanley asked.

"My daughter's father is a United States Marine, he's missing in action in the middle east." Mrs. Weiss replied. "You look more like a shady car salesman."

"Is there any way I can be his equal in your eyes?" Stanley asked.

"Yes, gain thirty pounds of muscle and lose sixty pounds of fat." said Mrs. Weiss, as she closed the door.

Later that morning, Shelly made her way to her classroom for summer school. She sat down with about twelve other students. When Scrapper entered the classroom, she was surprised.

"Where's Mr. Sorenson?" Shelly asked.

"He had some kind of a stroke, I'm Mr. Scrapper, his replacement."

"Mr. Sorenson ran 5 k's all the time, he was the picture of perfect health!" said Shelly.

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Scrapper replied, "but in the meantime, does anyone know where Megan Weiss is at? She's enrolled in this class."

Shelly tried to lay low, but a boy in the class raised his hand, and Scrapper called on him. "Shelly Krieger is Megan's best friend," the boy said, as he pointed at Shelly . “If anyone knows where Megan is, it's her.”

"Is that true. Ms. Krieger?" Scrapper asked. "Are you Megan's best friend?"

"Yes, but I don't know where she is." Shelly replied.

"Then maybe I need to make a house call," said Scrapper.

Meanwhile, at the state lottery office, Mrs. Weiss arrived after making a delivery of lottery tickets to one of the stores. Her co-worker Stanley approached her, and said, "Margaret, you sure look different than you did when I saw you in your bath robe this morning!"

Margaret Weiss cringed as she imagined what her co-workers were thinking at what Stanley had implied.

After school ended that day, Shelly ran to Megan's house right away. When Megan answered the door, Shelly said, "Mr. Sorenson had a stroke, and there was a substitute teacher there for the English class. He was asking about you! He said he was going to come over to your house!"

Just then, Megan's mother pulled up in the driveway. As she was getting out of the car, Scrapper pulled up on his motorcycle.

"Can I help you?" Mrs. Weiss asked.

"Yes, I'm Mr. Scrapper, your daughter Megan's English teacher. I was concerned when your daughter wasn't in school today."

"My daughter is on summer break," Mrs. Weiss replied.

"She has summer school," said Scrapper. "Her friend Shelly was there, but Megan wasn't."

"Megan!" Mrs. Weiss shouted.

Megan and Shelly exited the front door.

"Did you ditch summer school today?" Mrs. Weiss asked.

"Mom, English was the only class I didn't pass, I'm much better at math! You know how much I hate reading and writing!"

"That's not the point!" said Mrs. Weiss. "You need an education! You can't just take math classes, life doesn't work that way!"

Just then, Stanley, the co-worker of Mrs. Weiss, showed up. He got out of his car and headed toward Mrs. Weiss and Scrapper.

"Can we talk about this over coffee?" Mrs. Weiss asked Scrapper.

"Sure!" Scrapper replied.

Stanley approached Mrs. Weiss and asked, "So who is this guy?"

"He's a biker," Mrs. Weiss replied, "I'm dating him!" Margaret Weiss turned to Megan. "We'll discuss your punishment later, Megan."

Margaret Weiss and Scrapper got into Margaret’s car, and she drove to a nearby coffee shop. They went in and waited in line. When Margaret got to the counter, she ordered a drink, then watched as Scrapper ordered his drink and pulled out his debit card.

“Can I use my card to get some Bobs?” Scrapper asked.

“Excuse me?” the woman behind the counter asked.

“Paper Bobs?” Scrapper asked again.

“Do you want cash back?” the cashier asked. “Just key in your password and hit cash back in the screen.”

“Bobs?” Margaret asked. “Did you mean bills?”

Scrapper snapped his fingers. “That’s it! I knew it was a man’s name that started with a B.”

After they ordered their drinks, they sat down at a table.

“You really did me a solid getting me away from Stanley, my co-worker,” said Margaret. “He’s obsessed with me and won’t leave me alone. I would date a serial killer just to get away from him!”

“Where is your husband?” Scrapper asked.

“He’s in the Marine Corps. He got captured in Afghanistan a few years ago. My daughter Megan thinks he’s still alive, so she discourages me from dating again.”

“Do you think he’s still alive?” Scrapper asked.

“I don’t know what to think,” said Margaret. “My mind tells me he’s dead, but my heart tells me I’ll see him again.”

“Why wasn’t your daughter in school this morning?” Scrapper asked.

“She’s really slick. I didn’t even know she had summer school. I don’t know why she would ditch. I’ll be sure to make sure she goes tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, back in Megan’s bedroom, Megan and Shelly were interrogating Captain Vargas.

“Can you please tell me exactly what is going on?” Megan asked. “Why are criminals after you, and what is a temporal flux pattern, and how does the shrink ray work?”

“We are from the year 3321,” said Captain Vargas.

“That’s exactly 1,313 years in the future!” Said Megan proudly. “I’m an ace in math.”

“We were hauling a miniaturization weapon prototype from a facility in the Alpha Centauri system,” Captain Vargas continued. “In order to haul it through the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to reach Earth, a convoy set up a decoy ship so space pirates would think something valuable was being hauled in it, so pirates would concentrate their efforts there instead of on us.”

“Tell me about the miniaturization weapon prototype,” Megan asked.

“Miniaturization weapons have been around for a long time, but quantum force fields were developed that can shield people from them. If someone is wearing a size inhibitor ring, they can’t be miniaturized. This new weapon is more advanced, and can pierce a quantum force field, rendering size inhibitors useless.”

“How do shrink rays work?” Megan asked. “How can someone weigh less as they get smaller?”

“A dimensional field surrounds the person or object being miniaturized. The gravitational signature of each quark and gluon are detected, and a singularity opens in the center of each quark and gluon particle that compose the protons and neutrons of the atoms being shrunk. Most of the matter composing the quarks and gluons are discharged into another dimension in the form of neutrino particles. This causes the atoms to decrease in size, weight, volume, and mass.”

“What about the electrons?” Megan asked. “My dad was an engineer in the military, so I know a little bit about this stuff.”

“The electrons stay normal sized, but the strength of their charge is diminished to correspond with the decreased charge of the miniaturized protons. Any electrons passing out of the energy field surrounding the shrunken person or object are restored to normal, and any electrons entering the energy field have their charge diminished.”

“So what happened when you were hauling the weapon?” Megan asked.

“A space pirate named Scrapper who was once in the military with me figured out that we were hauling the true weapon prototype. I testified in military court and helped get him court martialed and dishonorably discharged from space command a couple of years prior, and he wants revenge. Scrapper and his two brothers attacked us, and we escaped into temporal space.”

“What is temporal space?” Shelly asked.

“It is a three dimensional continuum where time exists as space. In that continuum, when you travel through space, you travel back or forward in time, but when you emerge in normal space, you are still in the same location you started out from, but the rest of the universe has moved. Because our vessel was damaged, we were caught in a temporal flux pattern. We couldn’t return to normal space because it would've drained too much of our power supply.”

“How did you escape from temporal space?” Megan asked.

“The only way to escape was to jettison our reactor and use the shrink ray to reduce the size of ourselves, the shrink ray weapon, and the freighter, while keeping the reactor normal sized. When we emerged into normal space, we found ourselves here, in the early 21st century at nine-sixteenths of an inch tall. Normally, electronic equipment doesn’t function when miniaturized, but the weapon was reduced by maintaining the same mass while reducing the weight. It operates on a different theory than the one that reduced myself and my crew. We have to figure out how to get our equipment working again so we can transmit a signal to the 34th century.”

“What do you want from me?” Megan asked.

“We need you to allow us to program the shrink ray so we can return to normal size. If Scrapper tracked us back in time, he is very dangerous. You and your mother are in danger. We also need you to keep the shrink ray out of the hands of those space pirates.”

“If I do that, what can you do for me?” Megan asked.

“Captain Vargas looked hesitantly at his crew members, then back at Megan. “What do you want?”

“I want you to use your technology after you return to normal size to find my Dad. He is a prisoner of war in Afghanistan.”

“I doubt I can do that, I would be in violation of a directive that prevents us from tampering with history. But I can make you immortal! We have amazing medical technology in the 34th century.”

“I want that too,” Megan replied. “But unless you promise to find my Dad, you’re staying as my prisoners at nine-sixteenths of an inch tall!”

To Be Continued!